Charles M Schulz

If looks could talk or came equipped with their own cartoon balloons, there's no doubt what exclamation would accompany this silver-haired study in skepticism: "Good Grief!" is plastered all over Charles M. Schulz's face. The cartoonist who immortalized that expression and the equally exasperated "Rats!"

Sometimes the smallest notion can create magic. The 1973 animated special "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving " was based on a "very simple idea," said the show's producer Lee Mendelson. Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the beloved "Peanuts" comic strip, "said I wonder what it would be like if kids did Thanksgiving dinner and the chaos that would ensue. That is what it is all about. " "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" premiered on CBS on Nov. 20, 1973, and has been a staple on TV ever since.

Fifty miles north of San Francisco, straddling U.S. Highway 101, sits Santa Rosa, former home of Charles M. Schulz and the gang from "Peanuts. " From the highway, as you boom past at 70 mph, Santa Rosa appears to be just another somewhere on the way to somewhere else. But a short detour east into downtown or west into the wine country quickly proves otherwise. The tab: We spent $163 for a night at the Hotel La Rose, dinner for two at Willi's Wine Bar was $84, including wine, and a lavish picnic from Whole Foods Market came to $43. Gas and incidentals added $100 to the tab. Wine at Bella and Iron Horse vineyards, of course, was extra.

A public memorial service for "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz, who died on Feb. 12 at the age of 77, is scheduled for Monday at 11 a.m. at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, Calif. In lieu of flowers, the Schulz family has requested that donations be made payable to the Bill Mauldin WW II Cartoon Art Gallery Endowment and sent to National D-Day Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 77, Bedford, VA 24523.

"Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz is battling colon cancer, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported Sunday. The cancer was discovered Tuesday, after Schulz was rushed to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital to clear a blocked abdominal artery, the artist's wife, Jean Schulz, told the newspaper. His treatment will begin once doctors decide on the best course for attacking the disease, she said. The future is uncertain for "Peanuts," which is distributed to 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries.

The telecast of "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" was certainly television at its finest. Instead of the usual frivolous and silly things for children, here was a half-hour of sensitivity and information done with the ever-popular Peanuts gang. Any family with a seriously ill child must be very grateful for this wonderful way to teach children, and all of us, not to shut out the sick. Congratulations to Charles M. Schulz, the CBS network, the sponsors and the medical advisers. We are all better for their caring efforts.

Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and the gang are coming to the big screen, as 20th Century Fox Animation and its Blue Sky Studios unit announced Tuesday that they have acquired the rights to Charles M. Schulz's iconic "Peanuts" comic strip. The planned movie, the product of an agreement between the studio and Schulz's heirs, is scheduled to arrive in theaters Nov. 25, 2015. Steve Martino, who directed Fox's "Ice Age: Continental Drift" and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," is to direct from a screenplay by Craig Schulz, Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano.

Almost all the nation's daily comics have a "Peanuts" theme today, with a Charlie Brown here or a "good grief" there. The coordinated effort was conceived by "Mutts" cartoonist Patrick McDonnell before Charles M. Schulz's death Feb. 12, said Daryl Cagle, president of the National Cartoonists Society. It was planned to appear on the same day the society would be meeting to pay Schulz tribute and to give him a lifetime achievement award.

The rest of the world knew him, rather formally, as Charles M. Schulz. But to his many friends, the late creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy was simply "Sparky." Those friends, many of them fellow cartoonists, celebrated Sparky's 50 years in the funnies business Saturday by running Schulz-themed cartoons in the nation's newspapers. More than 80 strips--everything from "Alley Oop" to "Ziggy"--paid homage to "Peanuts."

Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and the gang are coming to the big screen, as 20th Century Fox Animation and its Blue Sky Studios unit announced Tuesday that they have acquired the rights to Charles M. Schulz's iconic "Peanuts" comic strip. The planned movie, the product of an agreement between the studio and Schulz's heirs, is scheduled to arrive in theaters Nov. 25, 2015. Steve Martino, who directed Fox's "Ice Age: Continental Drift" and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," is to direct from a screenplay by Craig Schulz, Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano.

May 27, 2007 | Laurel Maury, Laurel Maury is a New York-based writer and critic.

THERE'S something deeply comforting about the comic strip "Peanuts." Charlie Brown and his friends are always a reliably affable blast from the past. But the strip's full power has been obscured in recent years by the endless specials, the pruned-down collections and the carefully selected classic "Peanuts" strips that are running in more than 2,400 newspapers around the world. So it's a treat to find that Charles M.

I had invited my cool 13-year-old cousin, Sam, to see a new museum here commemorating the late "Peanuts" creator, Charles M. Schulz. I had assumed that a place dedicated to a comic strip wasn't the kind of museum most grown-ups would want to see unless they were trying to entertain someone younger. Sam was a wonderful addition to the weekend, but the truth was that the Charles M.

The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, which opens Saturday as the first museum in America devoted to the work of an individual cartoonist, is a handsome but unassuming building that fits quietly into its residential neighborhood here. That modesty seems appropriate. Although he created a worldwide popular culture and marketing phenomenon, Schulz remained a modest man who once said, "Cartooning is a fairly sort of a proposition.

Given the ubiquity of Charles "Sparky" Schulz's "Peanuts," it is hard to remember that the strip was in many ways a highly unlikely success story. The protagonist Charlie Brown is a loser whose obstreperous ego makes it difficult to root for him, even when he suffers shocking abuse at the hands of the ruthless tykes who populate his nameless American neighborhood.

Tucked between the rack of drawing pens and papers on Bill Melendez's desk is a small Snoopy figurine--but not just any Snoopy. This canine's snout is graced with a handlebar mustache similar to the one worn by the 84-year-old animator. And it's no accident. For the last five decades, Melendez and his business partner Lee Mendelson have brought the beloved beagle and the rest of the "Peanuts" gang to life in animated versions of Charles M. Schulz's cartoons.

In spite of the sports media's incessant incantation that "winning is everything," there is a great deal to be said for losing ("Sigh," Feb. 15). It is, after all, through losing that we often learn what is significant in this life and what is not. And Charlie Brown taught us that. So let us honor the memory of Charles M. Schulz by remembering that each of us is significant in this world, however many times we fall on our back trying to kick that football of success. God, I am sure, wouldn't have it any other way. --WIL BRYDON Winnetka We have been fortunate to have "Peanuts" printed in our Sunday newspapers for almost 50 years.

The rest of the world knew him, rather formally, as Charles M. Schulz. But to his many friends, the late creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy was simply "Sparky." Those friends, many of them fellow cartoonists, celebrated Sparky's 50 years in the funnies business Saturday by running Schulz-themed cartoons in the nation's newspapers. More than 80 strips--everything from "Alley Oop" to "Ziggy"--paid homage to "Peanuts."

Almost all the nation's daily comics have a "Peanuts" theme today, with a Charlie Brown here or a "good grief" there. The coordinated effort was conceived by "Mutts" cartoonist Patrick McDonnell before Charles M. Schulz's death Feb. 12, said Daryl Cagle, president of the National Cartoonists Society. It was planned to appear on the same day the society would be meeting to pay Schulz tribute and to give him a lifetime achievement award.